


First Recordings

by Caius



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Class Differences, Fuel kink, Fuel sharing, M/M, Power Imbalance, Size Difference, Snuggling, brief references to sticky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2293358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caius/pseuds/Caius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from the early life of Rewind of the House of Ambus.</p><p>Written for the TF Reverse-Bang: http://tf-reversebang.livejournal.com/</p><p>Inspired by this art by the talented specspectacle: http://specspectacle.tumblr.com/post/97287322677/heres-first-use-one-of-the-pieces-i-did-for</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Recordings

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [First Use](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/72740) by Specspectacle. 



The first thing it remembers is a soft voice saying, "Rewind, please."

There are no records from before that, only the serial number etched in its spark and Dominus Ambus explaining (much later, and it seemed to pain him) that it had been sent as a one-time pad, with no rewinding capabilities.

But this was all there was: there was the soft order, and then there was the darkness as whatever went before was erased.

****

The next thing Rewind remembers is a green-and-white-and-gray face, at an angle that it will learn to recognize as unusual -- straight on. 

"Welcome to the House of Ambus," the face said. The voice was deeper, and harsher, and even then, Rewind wanted the first voice back. "What is your name, data specialist?"

That was wrong, Rewind knew even then. It was not a specialist. It was a receptacle. But it was not supposed to contradict its betters. "Rewind, sir." It did not know any other. "Where is my master?" 

"Master?" The lines of the face indicated, to Rewind's deep coding, that the mech was displeased. "Dominus," and it was almost the same word, 'master' but the overtones were different. _The head of a house_ , Rewind's internal dictionary supplied. "Thought you would be more comfortable in my presence." 

Rewind's processor jumps at the phrasing; 'comfortable' was not a word its programming defined as something Rewind itself would be. "I am -- comfortable -- with data." Rewind said, putting the word experimentally into a sentence. Its camera looked up and down at the mech -- 1.6 mechanometers tall, it judged, within a decimechanometer of Rewind's length; and only half Rewind's width. "It is my function," Rewind added; that is something it knows in its core. 

"Good." The face decoration twitched upwards in the corners, just barely, and Rewind knew it had pleased. "The House of Ambus has many data. I will start you on the basic accounts."

The accounting, Rewind does not remember, only the ancient video of hands that it would know as _small_ pressing one datadisk as a time into his slot, monitoring the data transfer with no impatience and asking Rewind questions that seemed strange and irrelevant at the time.

"Minimus?" Rewind asked, at one point; the name the only datum retained from those first disks. 

"Minimus Ambus, yes." The mech answered. The littlest Ambus, Rewind's dictionary supplied; and it stored the information next to that on 'comfort', and on its master, and its name.

*****

"You're not an 'it'. Remember that." Minimus said very firmly as he guided Rewind into the presence of the head of the house. 

"What am I?" Rewind looked over at Minimus, confused. 

"You are a free, sentient, Cybertronian," Minimus explained. "'He'" -- this was the form Minimus used for Dominus, and that caused Rewind's processor to stall for a moment -- "will do for now. Go. Dominus is waiting."

Rewind walked, alone, into an office that it -- he? -- did not remember, and looked up -- and up, and up, far higher than he remembered ever looking -- into a face just a bit like Minimus', but bigger. 

"Rewind, please take a seat." And that, that was the voice of his first memory. 

He sat. There was a chair his size. He had to look up even further, now. "Dominus?" 

"Rewind." The huge mech leaned all the way down and extended a giant hand. "My apologies for the effect that word had on you before." 

Rewind looked at the hand in confusion. It was as large as its - his - chest module. Rewind was not sure he was permitted to touch, but he wanted to know what it felt like. 

"Shake, if you would so honor me." Dominus said, and Rewind's small hand -- and arm -- was wrapped in a huge one. 

Rewind's whole body shivered. Minimus had barely touched Rewind, and the touch of the floor, of the chair, of Rewind's own body components brushing against each other had never been so rich in data, pressure and warmth and things Rewind had no words for. 

Rewind tried to drink it in, tried to file it away forever, but it slipped away before he could slot the nameless sensations into his databanks.

The hand unwrapped itself, and Rewind made himself let go, looking up and up and up, recording Dominus. "Can you turn around?" he asked. There were parts of Dominus he _could not see_ , and that was way more important than deferring to his master. 

Dominus' face spread wide open -- more than Minimus' had ever, and more than Rewind was capable of -- and he laughed, joyfully. "Of course!" He turned around, slowly, letting Rewind record his sides and back -- everything so large, and detailed, and well-articulated. He finished with a little dip, letting Rewind get a tantalizing glimpse of the _top_ of his head. "You can get on top of the desk, too, if you want a better angle."

Rewind pulled his cameras away from Dominus to scan the desk. It was -- tall. Easily twice Rewind's own height. "How, Master Ambus?"

"Oh. Right." Dominus reached both huge hands down, although Rewind couldn't imagine its--his small frame would require more than one. "May I lift you?" 

And there he was, asking Rewind's permission. The protocols on dealing with masters clearly needed some updating. There was a millisecond of confused pause before Rewind said, "Yes," and those huge hands wrapped around his chest, encompassing his entire being for a moment before depositing him gently -- on his feet -- on the table.

He looked -- still up, and despite everything this was more natural, less disorientating than looking _at_ Minimus -- at his Master. At Dominus, he amended, applying the small correction to the file name in his memory as he _looked_.

Dominus, he realized, eventually, was looking back. Looking at _him_. His face spread wide open -- smiling, in pleasure, Rewind's databanks told him. Dominus liked what he saw. 

"I had thought," Dominus said finally. "You might -- sit here with me. Record my meetings, and -- advise me." It was not a command, but the voice -- the voice that had brought Rewind to memory -- Rewind didn't know, then or now, why he would refuse. 

"Yes," Rewind said. "I would like that." 

And with Dominus behind him, he turned to look out at the world. 

 

*****

Dominus touched him every day, twice a day, up to his desk and down again, and although Rewind realized eventually it wasn't strictly necessary -- Minimus climbed up the side of the desk with great dignity -- Rewind never suggested to Dominus that Rewind might do the same.

Rewind could remember every word Dominus had said, every nuance of his voice, pull up at once hundreds and thousands of pictures of his face and body, but the pressure of his hand and the tingle of his field eluded him. He was not built to record touch, the sensors under his armor registered Dominus' touch and discarded it, leaving him frustrated.

"Do I feel good?" he asked Dominus, once, when they had no company. 

Dominus paused in that way that, Rewind had learned, meant he had spoken out of turn -- but Dominus would never let him apologize for it, so he cast out for another subject -- "When Galvatron came to visit, the bodyguard next to him, who--"

"Yes," Dominus said, and looked down, and Rewind's memories lit up, the images of Dominus's hands so big and close preempting everything about Galvatron and his mysterious bodyguard, never mind that Galvatron's hands had hardly left his bodyguard's frame. 

"You can hold me more often if you want, then!" Rewind looked hopefully upward. And because, of course (as Minimus would remind him, occasionally) it was Dominus' right to do as he pleased, he added: "I would like that." 

"I think I would, too," Dominus said, the voice recording going directly to Rewind's hard memory as a large hand gently wrapped around him.

Rewind still couldn't remember Dominus' touch well, but it hardly mattered, when he could just _ask_ to feel Dominus again. 

*****

When Rewind was just sitting on the desk, no one noticed him. It was his function: to watch, and not be watched; only Dominus' optics, and occasionally Minimus', ever rested on him. 

When Dominus' hand started casually resting on him, bots started to Look, and Talk; and Rewind recorded every glance, every word, faithfully.

Everything they said about Rewind was frustratingly vague; and Dominus just held Rewind tighter when Rewind played the recordings back; held him tighter, and closer, and drew his attention to the business portion of the meeting. 

Still, Rewind gathered: Dominus was known to have a preference for minibots, for strays, and for disposables; like that brother of his, one senator whispered to his aide. 

Dominus didn't say anything at all about this, and Minimus said nothing at all about himself or his own life. Rewind could assume that this was true, at least in his own case, from the way that Dominus looked at him and the frequency with which Dominus handled him.

There was nothing in Rewind's databanks to match the specific words some of the mechs used. _Interface. Fragging. Spike sleeve. Face toy. Dildoformer._

None of them used them to Dominus Ambus' face, so Rewind didn't, either. Until he heard one of the terms used again, not derisively in a corner, but of two respectable noblemechs standing hand in hand before them.

"Dominus," Rewind asked later, curled up against Dominus' chest. "What is a _conjunx endura_?" Because Rewind couldn't figure it -- what word could both be whispered in the corner about him, but be used of noblemechs to their faces?

He could _feel_ the difference, the heat in Dominus' chest, right above his spark; he was getting better at remembering physical sensations. He just had to describe them to himself, first. 

"It's like being in the same House," Dominus Ambus said softly, lifting Rewind in his hands and _looking_ at him. "Except by choice." 

Rewind looked up at him. "Am I in your House?"

Dominus Ambus held him close. "I wish you could be."

*****

Dominus Ambus' fuel arrived in small glowing cubes, which were brought in by serving bots (who he addressed by name, with unfailing politeness; but he never spoke to or looked at them the way he did Rewind) and placed on the desk, or on the little table where he sat to do business with trusted colleagues.

Rewind had hundreds of images of Dominus fueling -- the small cubes held gently in his hands, as gently as Rewind himself, then pressed against his face, between his mustache and beard -- and slowly, gently, sipped at with finely articulated lips.

Sometimes, Rewind thought of it, alone at night, plugged into the wall charger, or when he poured his small allotment of liquid fuels into the intake tube in his chest.

(Minimus gave him his ration, not the serving bots, and after he showed him where to infuse it, never said a word about the process. But Minimus had a face like Dominus, even though Rewind had never seen him refuel, and had never asked.)

Dominus' companions would talk about _taste_ , which Rewind's internal dictionary glossed as a form of chemical perception, to detect a fuel's nutritional value. The words they used to discuss it -- sweat and sour and bitter and spicy, with notes of iron and cobalt and salts -- were lost on him entirely.

But he recorded the sights and sounds of Dominus drinking, the little sighs of pleasure as the small cubes of fuel vanished into his giant body, and could only conclude that Dominus' fuel was very nutritious indeed.

Usually, Dominus fueled in front of Rewind only when there was other company; he seemed almost apologetic that there was no fuel to offer to his companion, and was rather more attentive to the small bot afterwards. 

But they spent longer and longer together, as the days went on, Dominus telling Rewind stories and Rewind playing back and discussing the images of the recent past, and Rewind caught Dominus' hand drifting toward the cube waiting on the desk.

Rewind flipped off the datatrack he was playing -- there was hardly any more to say about Nova Prime's speech -- and scurried across the desk, shaking off Dominus' hand and grabbing the cube. "Drink!" 

He wasn't prepared for how warm the cube was. It glowed in his hands like a living being, like the spark he imagined sometimes he felt under Dominus' armor. He stumbled, and a large hand wrapped around him and the cube both. 

"My dear Rewind," Dominus said, and he was almost laughing. "I can't hide anything from you, can I? No, let me lift that." He wrapped his other hand around Rewind's back, lifting the bot in one hand as easily as the cube in the other. "It feels wrong not to share." 

"I don't mind watching." Rewind said, and he didn't -- he'd never gotten to be this close before, when Dominus was fueling. "But could I touch it?" he asked, daring. His body still tingled from the touch of the cube. He had not expected anything like that from his own fuel. 

Dominus stared at him for a moment. "Of course," he said, and diffused the top of the cube, offering it to Rewind.

"Thank you!" Rewind said, as eager as if he'd been offered a taste in fact, and leaned over in Dominus' grip, pushing just one finger tip into the glowing liquid.

It was like -- Rewind had no words for it, and no capacity to remember the touch, only the glow on his finger as it clung to him and the utter pleasure in Dominus' optics as he lifted his hand, offering the tiny finger covered in glowing fuel to Dominus' lips. 

Rewind counted that day as his first kiss. And his second, and third, and fourth, and a hundred more, as Dominus took his fuel from Rewind's tiny fingers, then -- because he was so tiny, and Rewind knew Dominus needed the fuel -- his two hands cupped together, and then somehow it degenerated into Dominus licking Rewind all over, Rewind's body wiggling and tingling with pleasure from the fuel and from Dominus' big strong tongue.

And then -- since it was Dominus' fault, after all, and Dominus was always very conscientious about that -- Rewind was taken to Dominus' private washracks and cleaned, thoroughly. 

Afterwards, when Rewind was lying thoroughly exhausted and overwhelmed, his memory files from the day a jumble of audio and video and endless notes on tactile sensations, Dominus pressed his huge lips to Rewind's faceplate and said, "Next time, we share."

And before Rewind could unscramble his processor enough to answer, he gently plugged Rewind into the wall charger in his tiny chamber, and left him to recharge and defragment.

*****

There were no appointments the next day. Rewind arrived at Dominus' office to find Dominus pacing up and down the room impatiently.

"Rewind!" he said, turning toward him excitedly; and then stopped, clutching the back of his chair back anxiously. "I -- cleared my schedule. It's just us."

"Dominus?" Rewind looked up -- and up, and up -- at him. "For me?"

"Well." Dominus looked down. "There wasn't anything very important, anyway."

Rewind rushed up to him. "Dominus!" he said, and he let the recording that had been playing through his processor all day out. " _Next time, we share._ "

"If you want." Dominus said, and he crouched down, as low as he could get, reaching his arms out for Rewind, as anxious as the day he first lifted him. 

Rewind climbed into them easily, petting Dominus' left arm soothingly. "Always." 

Dominus lit up, almost literally, and swept Rewind into his arms, not bothering with his desk today, just holding him close. "Good!" he said, and Dominus' big lips pressed against Rewind's faceplate again. Warm and soft and slightly oily, he noted for future reference. Very, very nice.

"How are we going to share?" Rewind asked. "I liked what we did yesterday."

Dominus looked down at him. He seemed uncertain, still. "You -- do take liquid fuel, sometimes?"

"Yes, of course." Rewind said. It hadn't been something he'd ever wanted Dominus to _watch _before but -- "Do you want me to show you?"__

__"Yes, please." Dominus said. Large fingers caressed his back. "Where -- is it?"_ _

__"Under my chest, uh -- " Rewind fumbled at the catches his chest plate with both hands. "I'm going to have to lift this off. Can you? Yeah, just -- be careful with it." Rewind passed the chestplate over to Dominus and resisted the urge to try to cross his arms over his innards, leaning up defiantly and letting Dominus Ambus _see_. _ _

__Dominus did, indeed, look. His hand reached out, stopping just short of touching Rewind inside. "Maybe we can make a easier way of doing this. If -- you like it, I mean. Through the back, maybe?"_ _

__"You don't like it?" Rewind did cross his hands across himself now. Of course Dominus wouldn't think his systems were good enough. Of course._ _

__"No, I -- I just." Dominus looked away. "I thought, maybe -- you could join me, with other bots. Someday. If you want."_ _

__"In public?" Rewind forgot his absent chestplate altogether and stared up at Dominus._ _

__Dominus looked back at him. "Yes. If you want. I -- want you to be -- " Dominus shook his head. "I'm not ashamed of you. You are nothing to be ashamed of."_ _

__"Oh." Rewind said. "Well." He paused, looking up at Dominus, recording the moment. "Let's share that fuel, then."_ _

__"Yes. Let's." Dominus' chestplate slid open. "I think we're compatible -- here." He guided Rewind's hand to a little nozzle and hose, and his whole body shivered, just a little, when Rewind touched it._ _

__"Can I?" Rewind said, even as his little fingers started unspooling the hose._ _

__"Of course." Dominus said, and his grip on Rewind got just a little tighter as Rewind unwound the hose, found his own fuel intake, and screwed it gently in._ _

__It felt nothing like a regular fueling. Rewind was grateful for Dominus' support, because as soon as he was connected it was just, like -- he stared at the tube, which started glowing almost as soon as they connected. "You're already -- oh!" It was like -- Rewind had no words for it, no images. He clutched at the hose, managing to squeeze off the flow of glowing fuel for a moment._ _

__"Is it -- is it too much, do you need me to--" Dominus' face looked distant for a moment in the way that meant he was engaging an internal command and the glow slowed to a trickle and then cut off._ _

__"No I -- Dominus please --" Rewind collected himself. "Please. Drink, while you do that."_ _

__"Oh -- okay." Dominus stood and grabbed a cube from the desk. "Do you want me to, uh?" He offered the cube to Rewind._ _

__"Yeah." Rewind reached his fingers into it, again, savoring the overwhelming indescribable feeling of energon on his fingers and then _recording_ as Dominus pressed his mouth to his hand, lapping up the energon. _ _

__And then the fuel started flowing down the tube, slowly, and all Rewind could see and feel was Dominus licking the energon from his hands and the slow warm feeling growing in his body._ _

__"Is this what it's like to taste?" Rewind asked._ _

__"It's so much better than taste," Dominus said, and bent to drink some more from Rewind's bent hands._ _

__*****_ _

__Much later, Rewind sat by Dominus, tube stretched quite casually between Dominus' wrist and the back of Rewind's neck, sharing a cube of energon._ _

__The Senator who had provided the energon -- from his own refining plant, he had said -- looked displeased. "Surely your recording bot doesn't require such a high grade of energon! He can't even taste it!"_ _

__Dominus smiled. "Senator Anilus. May I present my Conjunx Endura, Rewind of the House of Ambus?"_ _

__Rewind bowed. "Pleased to meet you, Senator."_ _

__They were the scandal of the age._ _


End file.
